The United States Department of Justice has unsealed charges against 17 members of the Mabna Institute, an Iranian company, for their alleged involvement in a coordinated hacking campaign targeting hundreds of universities and dozens of private sector companies.
The 17 Iranian nationals are thought to be responsible for stealing 31 terabytes of data from 144 US-based universities, 178 universities outside the US, 42 US companies, 11 foreign firms, and at least two government agencies and two NGOs on behalf of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
“Today’s charges, which include eight additional defendants, reveal the broader network allegedly behind a sweeping, state-sponsored campaign to steal research and intellectual property from American universities, businesses, and government institutions,” US Attorney Jamie McDonald for the Southern District of New York said in an August 18 statement.
“More than eight years after making the original indictment public, these charges make clear that the passage of time will not deter us from identifying and pursuing those who target the United States from abroad. Cyber operations have become a central instrument of national power, and attacks on American and allied institutions carry direct consequences for our security and economic strength. This office and our partners will continue to protect American innovation and pursue accountability for the individuals behind these attacks.”
The alleged activity began in at least 2013 and ran until December 2017, with Assistant Director Brett Leatherman of the FBI’s Cyber Division saying the charges prove “the FBI’s memory is long”.
“These defendants allegedly built and profited from a sprawling hacking-for-hire operation that targeted the intellectual property of American and allied universities, companies, and government agencies for the benefit of the Iranian government,” Leatherman said.
“The FBI will continue working with law enforcement and private sector partners to identify malicious cyber actors, disrupt their operations, and impose real cost on them, wherever they operate.”
The charges allege the Mabna Institute compromised the email accounts of approximately 8,000 academics not only from US institutions, but also ones in Australia, Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and the United Kingdom.
The alleged hackers used stolen credentials to access the email accounts to steal research, data, and documents across “all fields of research”.
While the stolen data was generally acquired to benefit Iran, the data was also sold online.
Private sector companies in Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom were targeted, alongside the US Department of Labor, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the State of Hawaii, the State of Indiana, the United Nations, and the United Nations Children’s Fund.
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